


don’t go where i can’t follow

by sapphfics



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-17 15:23:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13079757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphfics/pseuds/sapphfics
Summary: When Padme learns Anakin was taken in as an indentured servant since he was born, she wants his story to make headlines. She wants it to break hearts, to make people donate to charity, to make the rich pretend to care.They have walked on the moon, they should be better than this.She does tell his story, tries to use her position in the Senate to help him and others like him, but it sturs no one. Those who choose to clean houses as a means of survival do not deserve a living wage, and in fact, deserve nothing more than table scraps and the unreachable mirage of a raise.When she rescues Anakin herself in the dead of night, he stares at her and asks: “Are you an angel?”





	don’t go where i can’t follow

When Padme learns Anakin was taken in as an indentured servant since he was born, she wants his story to make headlines. She wants it to break hearts, to make people donate to charity, to make the rich pretend to care.

They have walked on the moon, they should be better than this.

She does tell his story, tries to use her position in the Senate to help him and others like him, but it sturs no one. Those who choose to clean houses as a means of survival do not deserve a living wage, and in fact, deserve nothing more than table scraps and the unreachable mirage of a raise.

When she rescues Anakin herself in the dead of night, he stares at her and asks: “Are you an angel?”

She almost laughs at that, pulls her hat down to cover her face.

His mother will not come with them. “He’ll find me if I escape, he put a tracking device on me. I’ll stay, and tell him Anakin died.”

“Will I ever see you again?” He asks, because he’s still a little bit innocent, a little less broken, a little more optimistic.

His mother grips his hands and Padme wants nothing more than to shoot the owner through the head. “What does your heart tell you?”

“I hope so,” he whispers. “Yes.”

As they lead him away, everything he owns packed away in a plastic bag, she hears his mother pray that they won’t come back.

-:-

She can’t decide if the senate really does not believe her country is being invaded, or if they think she is lying even though she has nothing to gain from deceiving them. That is all a woman can be, after all, a homemaker or a snake in the grass. It’s probably the latter, she reflects without surprise.

She is almost glad she is not there, disguised as her own lady in waiting and sitting in the backseat of a car they won by sheer luck alone. Her country is one of the few that has yet to have a proper democracy, and she would like to change that if she were able. She knows she would be able to in a heartbeat if she were a man, but she is not, and she will make do with what she has.

Obi-Wan tells Anakin stories of knights and brave heroes, and he listens intently.

“I miss my mother,” he tells the Council, nine years old and trying to be honest even though he knows vulnerability will only get him hurt.

“You’re afraid of losing her,” Yoda comments unnecessarily.

That’s the day Anakin learns to only repress his emotions, and let go of everything he is afraid to loose. They burn Qui-Gon Jinn’s body and Anakin does not flinch from the flames.

They throw a party when a peace treaty as fragile as glass is signed. Still, she doesn’t mind the distraction. She almost asks Anakin to dance but he’s staring at something she can’t see, so she leaves him be.

-:-

Years pass like sand in an hourglass, but she swears she can feel the entire universe stop on its axis the day she is almost assassinated.

It’s not as though this has never happened before, but she’s not expecting it. She reflects, later, that it was completely plausible. She has arrived to request an army, in the hope of an answer from a distress signal. She is a queen without a king, without a man to check she is doing the right thing, and that cannot be tolerated. She watches her friend die in her place, and thinks it should have been her.

She knows the world is not as safe as the tales her mother told her made it seem, and soon enough Anakin’s assigned as her personal guard. He has grown since she last saw him, no longer the lost little boy trying to hold back every emotion. She doesn’t request him, but his presence is not unwelcome.

It becomes more welcome over time. She does not mean to loose her heart.

His mother is killed and he goes on a rampage. She pushes the thought of all the men and women and children he killed to the back of her brain, looks him in the eyes, holds his hand because she knows he won’t hurt her.

“Anger is normal,” She says because she secretly despises the way Yoda has brought him up, but she can’t change the past. She can only try and change the future.

He loses his hand to a dagger through the wrist, when he’s trying desperately to save Obi-Wan. He gets a prosthetic but seems so used to loss that he hardly cares.

They are married in secret, a ceremony nowhere near befitting a queen. She likes it better that way. Less crowds, less claustrophobia. She clutches his metal hand, they stare into the sunset, and hope for a better future.

It’s all they can do.

-:-

“So this is how liberty dies,” Padme remarks, powerless as she watches men ruin the world. “With thunderous applause.”

She hates feeling so helpless as she watches the menace Jar Jar Binks ruin lives. She thinks of the children she will have soon, hopes that they will find a way to fix this, hopes that she could be able to help them, that she could fix anything.

Anakin murders a hundred children three days before she dies, and she can’t bring herself to cry in front of Obi-Wan when he tells her because she is a queen and a mother and a politician and crying gets you nowhere.

She allows herself to break down when she’s alone. She hasn’t been alone in so long.

“You’re going down a path I can’t follow. You’re breaking my heart.”

She thinks, just for a second, that she might convince him to stop. That the man she fell in love with is still there. That there is still good in him.

Until she feels his hands around her neck.

**Author's Note:**

> i’m sorry if this sucks i just needed to finish something...writer’s block sucks y’all also happy holidays <3


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